


Running on Empty

by blueberry



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Dream Sex, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, Necrophilia, Post-Mad Max: Fury Road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 16:45:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6574066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberry/pseuds/blueberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max likes the kind of company Nux provides; such a light presence on the mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running on Empty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mornelithe_falconsbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mornelithe_falconsbane/gifts).



> By happy circumstance, sometimes when the landscape is irradiated to all hell, the bacteria that take care of decomposition largely die off and organic bodies stick around in much better shape for longer than normal. Lucky for Nux! Not that I'm claiming this is a particularly realistic story...

It was a bleat of a voice, thin out of a thick throat: "Come back."

With a moment more of wakefulness, Max was shocked to realise fully that the voice had been his own. Begging for - a dream? He wanted to dream? Really?

Dawn was searing its way over the dunes, bleeding inwards into his sight without him having to sit up and look out a window. Along with the light the heat rolled in thicker than it already was, breathing in visible vibrations over the sand.

He got up. The car needed work that was best tackled in light rather than by feel, and he was fairly sure that the surroundings were quiet enough to get away with doing it right here. The Vuvalini's tower, a few hundred metres distant, would attract attention before he would if anyone did happen by, but it was unlikely anyone would come here in the first place. The salt flats cut off one point of approach, the area might well have developed a reputation for danger after the Vuvalini had run their baited trap for so long, and there was nothing here. Sand. Even the few signs of hidden goods had been pulled up, the caches emptied, prior to their trip back to...

...where his car had come from, a car which had been chewed up along the way, and needed fixing this minute rather than for him to sit staring into space. Or, as the case was, the doll's head jammed on the gear stick.

He'd got lucky enough, following the War Rig route. He'd crossed deeper into Buzzard territory to bypass the standing storm and had got through, no trouble; they'd had too many kickings over the past few days to be roaming. There had been time to salvage provisions and weapons from wrecks on the way, and he'd survived a bout of unavoidable collapse in one of the wrecks, too. At the Rock Riders' pass his suspicions had paid off: they'd started clearing wreckage out of the way, since their power depended on people bargaining a way through. Holding his empty hands over his head, he'd offered to pitch in with the work in exchange for a medium-busted car and the tools to get it going.

The Riders had also allowed that he worked with the wrecks and fallen rocks only. Hadn't insisted that he also carry the bodies out and toss them in a shallow valley among the rising ridges. Now there was real luck, he'd acknowledge, since for the price of a car they would have been in their rights to insist that he help with that too. Apparently there had been similar enough incidents before, wrecks and bodies left lying in the pass after a War Party rocked down the road. Citadel would keep itself the fuck to itself, they had said in answer to his look of horror, if it saw enough of an advantage, and its boss liked easy access to potential fertiliser...

Max blinked, hard, so he could see dunes shaping the horizon in front of him instead of thinking too much of towering stone. Bending over the car's workings, he set to work in earnest.

Break for water, getting out of the sun - better to stay in the car and feel the heat magnified through the glass and metal, or lie under the car and get sand all over? - and some food, too. Then back to work, even if the problems were patched and it was more like play by now. It was best to get to know your ride's quirks.

His hands shook and he realised that he was tired. All that fighting, the blood transfusions, hard work on too little rest afterwards...

Then he realised he didn't mind. Was tired enough to sleep, and it simply ... felt fine - no heaviness in his chest, no growing recalcitrance from his lungs. Slowly he drew himself up, straightening to take stock of his body and surroundings again. Nothing else was around to provide him an answer.

Sleep was dangerous, an invitation to any passersby to fuck him up. And it put him deeper into his brain... It was best put off until life was barely tolerable without it, and he could black himself out as result of the long lack.

In contrast to the way he'd felt for years - probably years, who knew? - his heart beat steadily on, felt lighter than it ought.

Then he remembered.

_"Bloodb--I found you!" Voice rushed and hungry, sweeter than anything had a right to be, and that counted for itself in particular, what with coming out of that skull-face. "It wasn't hard, I just got distracted." Strange how clear the voice was; strange how the hand stuck well inside Max's chest was barely a presence, though its fingers fluttered with the pumps of his heart._

And Max had invited him back. That slice of clarity in the middle of other dreams of shots in the dark, fire in front of his face, hands reaching for him and for the others - he'd wanted it back when he woke.

It'd fade soon. That was how these things worked. After a while, any clarity would be doled out in cycles; he'd drive in quiet for hours, weeks, or months, until the awareness of voices or visions came on him in fragments. A clear, new voice - maybe that could even drown out the Child a while, hide those accusing, hopeful, betrayed, so-young eyes... But maybe (if he gave free rein to all his thoughts) the Child had been kind enough to allow a new voice to say its bit.

His new car had no back seat, but the resultant space was enough to make the lack of padding seem worth it. There was practically room for stretching his legs when he lay down.

And Nux... Just thinking it brought in a flash flood of things he hadn't thought of in days. Hadn't killed him, despite trying in the beginning. They'd just been with each other. Decent, together. Good kid - stupid, horrifying, strange ideas and all. Determined about choosing his own death, and even Max couldn't think it had much to do with him. That death was a pity, yeah, fuck, but not a regret. And yet still strange enough to stick to him and provide a voice to hear...

He closed his eyes, let his body rest as it wanted.

Easy.

Before he had quite dipped under, he realised part of what made it so easy: "You don't say my name." He shuddered out a sighing breath. "Only one who never has." And smiled.

 

The hand was back in his chest, fingers fluttering and keeping just far enough away to let his heart well up and rub against fingerprints with its own movement.

"Promise I won't eat it, I just get carried away!" 

It was more of a concern now.

"Every time," said Nux, chastised, and pulled his hand back out with as little fuss as it had gone in. It was clean but for dark circles under the nails; blood, grease, or both? That made sense, Max decided.

"Bloodbag--I mean! _Sorry_ , just sorry, is what I mean. Shouldn't have done that to you, it's just, it seemed like what I should do from the stories they told us when we stopped being Pups. Um, little ones, you know. But I won't do it to you. I've decided."

Max put his hand over Nux's where it rested honest and open on the surface of his chest. It set the kid jolting like electricity, he knew, though the rest of Nux's body was an unclear outline of inattention. Nice hand, though. Big enough to span him all over, rough, knobbled, the only downside being that it was a bit cool. Still troubled by bad circulation, then; who'd have thought. Like a blanket, otherwise, making you want to wrap up, and easy to push away.

All he had to do was wake up.

 

Now, Max thought, blinking in the next morning's sun (but nearly noon already - he'd meant to have a _nap_ ) was there a point in trying to find an 'upriver'? His hands were already scrambling for a canister of water in his breakfast thirst.

The Crow Marshes had to get a water source from somewhere. Was it filtering up from bedrock and into sour soil, or was there some minute trail of water flowing underground to that spongy part of the landscape?

He ought to get right away from this area, he decided, no turning back to get anywhere near the marshes. He was fooling himself. There was a chance Citadel scouts would come out this far, gathering scrap, maybe coming to talk to the people of the marsh. He wouldn't put it past those young women. If you set out to change a world, you might well go looking for more of a world to change.

All the business anyone could assume he had around here was done. No more lingering. Was he hoping? What if there was the sound of another engine right now?

Get up, get going. There had been plenty of times that he'd set out in unknown directions with far fewer provisions than he had right now. And yes, he could now affirm he really hadn't missed that heavy clench of dread in his chest.

Back windows down to the heat of the day, car running steady on its near-new tyres (and a spare strapped in back; you could call that luxury), in the direction of _away_ , Max breathed out again.

 

The keening noise came from the doll's head on the gear stick, and that was it, he was getting rid of that thing even if this was just a dream.

Soon enough, it was Nux's voice, wailing out of him even when his lips were pressed tight together. No talking, just that sound.

As if to make up for it, the body was a lot different. Present, for one thing. Taller than memory would have it, and Max wondered if soon he'd be engulfed by it, the way the hand had covered his chest and the whole of him.

"I should ask," were the only words Nux said, startled and muffled, having dragged layers upon layers of Max's clothes out of the way until he dug up unprotected skin, and the keening took a wilder edge. Had that woman taught him about that in the short time they had?

Max hoped he wasn't undoing good work when he pulled his clothes further out of the way, sensation surging up his skin. Hadn't felt this in forever. Hadn't even dreamed of it in so long. Let him live this again, however it came to him, real or not. Crying and wailing, mourning and still eager. And fuck, _cold_.

Proper wet mouth on him, though, the dream lacking no clarity in the details of scarred lips and strong teeth. There were matter-of-fact bites to his nipples, as if insistent that was what they were for, however much he pet the smoothness of Nux's head to soothe the need for violence. Probably the kid just liked doing it. Max snaked his own hand down to twist one of Nux's nipples - and it was strange, like the friction was enough to send a whole wave of heat down Nux's body, or maybe his own, or both.

 

He'd be driving, or looking for signs of something to eat, or trying to decide if it was time to track down a trading post, and it would come to him again:

They'd lived - a lot of them had.

Max could sit and think on that for hours at a time. Even if he didn't want to. If his hand hurt where it had been injured on the drive, if the transfusion kit caught his eye, he would find himself thinking of all that lot. He'd picture them, relieved to have missed most of their names, remembering their voices and never needing to fear doing so. Even when he'd dreamed of Angharad, her unborn baby, that hadn't been all bad. Almost just dreams, but god, the kindness in them made him think that, perhaps, something more stuck in it... Had she said his name? Or had she called him Fool? But he'd hardly seen her, anyway, perhaps in her satisfaction at what her little family had acomplished.

He thought of the women; and - if his head kept on running away with him - the water coming down at the end. 'No unnecessary killing', too - the women carrying those words home with them, and a bag of seeds, to all those people back in that hellhole. They'd lived, and more lived with them, and maybe those seeds would even grow.

Another thing: "Take them home", an almost last-gasp plea - he had done it, even for two of the Vuvalini, scavengers for so long, and for Furiosa on the verge of death. Those were words that wouldn't beat their way into his brain in the way _help us/me/herhimthemHELP_ did ... even if the thought of them made him a little weak in another way.

"Might lose language totally, someday," Max said to no one. "No help from a muzzle, this time--" and he grunted at the weight of it, a second's worth of metal set along his neck and face, proving his own point. Rolled his jaw, rubbed along the sandpaper of his skin to get rid of the remembered sensation.

Perhaps he ought to start talking to his new car. Still hadn't got rid of the doll's head. It gave a good grip.

Which option was crazier? Good thing that witchy girl wasn't dead - she'd have told him in detail, otherwise. Good thing she wasn't dead, full stop--

"Don't have to lose it," said no one. "You don't."

No, it didn't. Couldn't have said anything. Not possible.

Not a word.

Not _again_. 

Max put his foot down a little harder on the accelerator. Reflex. No other option. Even if he already knew it wouldn't help.

 

"I swear, you don't have to lose nothing! If you can't stand to gain anything either ... you can just take me back, and, and then go again. If you really can't stand to stay. Or at least, not to stay all the time ... But take me back home, please!

"I don't think blood - it would work, but I don't think I want to make you... It wouldn't be fair, making you do that again. But you know what _would_ work?"

 

Blinking came to be like sleeping. There he was, lively against all odds, grinning. Quiet, sweet. Just a flash of him, all blue-and-ash in the eye-socket area. Nose looking more like a puppy's than the skeletal shadow it was meant to mimic. Kids these days, ha.

All the time, every bloody second, on the verge of being too much to take.

He eased it off a bit once Max turned in the direction he suggested, though. No skin off Max's nose - the kid new a good bit about choosing decent routes over decent-to-terrible terrain.

 

By the time that he stopped the car, he couldn't remember the last time he'd slept.

 

"Gotta get you out of here--"

_Get me out!_

"Enthusiasm," Max complained as he covertly fought a smile. Of course, the complaint bounced off Nux. He simply put a little more urgent pressure at Max's temples, sucked breezelike at the hollows of his ears as if in the spirit of kissing.

If only the kid could steady Max's hands instead and so make the hauling easier. There were so many people in the way - blurred in the colours and black spots that passed through his head in waves, along with the pressure Nux put on him - tangled together in a way that made it hard to find Nux and work him free.

Long work. Hot. At least the Rock Riders left him alone; at least he was close enough to their territory that no one else was going to bother him.

"Just you," he said to Nux, letting the smile from earlier loose after all; and suddenly stricken, as he hauled another unmoving War Boy out of the way, with the idea that there was only air to hear him.

Nux kindly raised the hair on Max's arms and neck, shivers and goosebumps. Hard for him to get a voice through now - surely it shouldn't be that way? Here he was, in Max's arms ... again? Finally? But it was so ... fuck, well, it was kind of soothing, or something, such a light _presence_ and yet such a heavy touch. He held Nux to him with a full weight, the top part of the lanky, bony frame leaning against him.

Fuck. With his skin this pale and papery, Nux was going to need another blood transfusion - "YEAH, BLOOD, THAT WORKS," Nux said loud enough to hurt, "OR, WELL, YOU KNOW--"

"Not quite the same thing," Max muttered, and set back to work. He was looking forward to it, not having to wait until it was time to sleep again. Just as soon as he could get Nux's legs free, get him over to the car.

Hot out here. Water bottle empty by now, after all this untangling and shifting. But he was close to finishing, better keep at it...

The Rock Riders had, of course, stripped the people they dragged out of their canyon. When Max pulled Nux out, he was already naked.

Max kissed him, then Larry and Barry too at some prompting, and felt a touch like the sweat rolling down his neck, except for it being a little way under his skin. "Nux," he said aloud, in a way that he was sure that he'd hate from Nux to call his. For almost anyone to call his name. Couldn't quite help it. Somehow it felt like it had been so long since the last touch.

The second he lay Nux down on the back seat of his car, he blacked out. The last thought to rise up in him was a scream from his instincts that first he had to drink something, but for once, instinct didn't help one whit.

And, of course, this did not stop Nux. What could? He was eager as every second Wasteland wanderer to feel a connection, and he had so many hands to do it with... They came from his memories, such vivid things that Max knew them too, practically, the force of War Boys in their romps and their rituals. Dragging a body down, a mosh pit made out of a tangle of bodies. And those strange kids had thumped a beat out on each other with the flat of their hands and a friendly punch or two, until some got riled up and took up the same beat with a fuck, the slap of hips-to-hips matching up with the rest of the makeshift music. It had been laughter, the lightning-flash of orgasm, nails and teeth spiking delicious into skin, the hypnotic beat of music, blood, sex. Max laughed too at the strange memory, once-removed from him, still precious, and at hearing the sound of his own voice realised that he was awake again.

Nux just let him see what was before him in this moment. No more mosh pit of tangled touch and heat: it was simply Nux lying under Max, inviting, his eyes as dark and deep as the sharp shadows the afternoon's glare left inside the car, half-closed and half-open.

Still so cool to the touch. Still stiff, from the way he lay, to his dick, to that papery old-feeling skin.

And yet the normal enthusiasm was there with every touch Max laid on him, ruffling his hair and setting Nux to making whimpers of excitement right in his ears, though with the old trick of doing it without moving his mouth. It never did take him long to get that worked up. Still a little fun to pretend to be a sex god. 

Time for a fuck, then - he knew Nux insisted. Nothing else would do right now, however much Nux had hungered for those other touches. All right, all right, yeah, that'd be good.

There was spit to serve as lube, precious, but more renewable than the axle grease a War Boy might try and insist on. Immortan Joe might have been well-overthrown but Nux still had a share of odd ideas. Besides which, Max found that his pre-come ran high these days - the fluid looked the same as normal otherwise, at least, as clean as he could guess it had ever been; there was just plenty of it, his body eager enough for pleasure as to dare attempt to think itself bountiful, having something to offer.

God, but it was work. Just getting his fingers into Nux, levering up his hips for holding, finding a good way for Mad to prop his bad knee for long enough to work up to a rhythm of thrusts. This heavy boy kept slipping out of his hold and off the seat, not helping and yet crying directly into his nervous system for him to keep going, please start. Max dropped a kiss to him, wondering how such enthusiasm could translate to such physical dullness beneath his lips, no responsive pressure, like this at last had caused Nux to come over shy. The only movement was from sand loosed between the cracks in his skin, grains scrubbing against him as if Nux had finally dared to let himself grow stubble.

And getting Nux to open to him once he'd forced himself in at a decent angle, good enough leverage - well, that was a slow process like never before. Worth it, though; when the muscles opened enough to admit him, he didn't think he'd been so deep in anybody in his life. A few strong thrusts and there was no more resistance, enough tightness there, but the flex that would try and expel him absent completely. Trust or obedience? This poor fucking War Boy, he thought with part of him, but felt the sensation of being so deep in with all the rest.

Max came, and Nux howled for more, his energy fit to lift sand outside the car in a shift of grit. He told Max to put a hand over where his heart was beating, _so fast, oh, oh_ \- not fast at all, though. Maybe he'd secretly been feeling sick, if this impressed him; Max fucked him gentle and oh, so slow, in pace with his labouring, stop-start heart.

It did not feel quite like before, but Max found that sacrificing depth for the flex of muscle around his dick was no problem at all. And oh, when Nux's hips gave the smallest twitch of responsive movement, yeah, he'd take more of that. He had to lay down shortly afterwards to ease his bad leg, resting a little too heavily on the kid's chest, and it startled a breath out of Nux, and then an even bigger gasp as Max thrust again. Nux came before he did this time, and whined at him until he licked it off Nux's stomach and kissed him, and then clawed clumsily at his hips to draw him back in deep to take his come in turn.

 

\--

 

Max came out of the black. He came back out. He came back out of it, and there was water trickling carefully down his throat, hands positioning his head to let it flow properly.

"Ate all your food." Nux. Voice rasping so bad it hurt Max's own throat, and it should have been unfamiliar... There was no way it could be, not ever again. "We're gonna go to Citadel."

He tapped Nux's wrist to make him stop with the water. "You know that ... Can't. I just ... I can't."

"Gotta stock up. You need food."

"You just want to see her. Capable." Had he known that was her name? But it was.

"Wanna see lots of things," Nux protested.

There was more to see out here, Max could have argued; such very, very strange things.

But if someone had a home that they could go to, what was he to turn them on the path away from it?

"I'm driving," Max said.

Nux kissed him, nearly with a sob to it, but too happy to have any tears stick. It was a little damp, not so like paper; warm and brimming with vitality.


End file.
